acl65pilot

Slow, I beleive that these guys are saying is that those 70/76 seat jets are mainline jets.

acl65pilot

Sounds about right. ATL will have to sit tight for now, and the movement there starts in Jan.

Either way it is good because for now it is positive growth.

Scoop

Slow,

First off - Why so defensive of management? All I was saying is that there are plenty of routes that RJs were serving that could be served by mainline.

If you are asking me to explain why our management does what they do, you are asking quite a bit. I was simply responding to a previous post about RJ.s. Are you saying markets such as JFK-ORD can not support mainline service?

Finally, my guess as to why we are doing this is that there are a bunch of reasons:

In their RJ love-fest days management signed a bunch of long term contracts that are now binding. Also, we probably parked too many mainline jets and now don't have enough aircraft to serve these markets without RJs.

And finally let me ask you some questions - Why would management sign a deal where our connection carriers were making consistent profits at no risk and DAL was posting record loses?

Why would management buy COMAIR and ASA high and sell low?

Why are they always 180 out on fuel hedges?

Answer to all - They make mistakes. Are you inferring because our management does something it is correct? That they couldn't possibly be doing something now, that in hindsight will appear foolish? I guess you are saying if we are using RJs on these routes its the right, ie. correct, ie. the most profitable thing to do?


Scoop

DAL 88 Driver

It's a tough call on that. Do you continue spending time and resources trying to fix something that you haven't been able to fix with the considerable time and resources you've already spent all these years? Or do you just reallocate as much of the flying to mainline as possible and try to live with whatever minimum amount of RJ flying you can get away with under the contractual obligations you have? I don't know... that's above my pay grade. But I sure hope we're not throwing good money after bad... and continuing to lose customers in the process.

sinca3

To add to this, each 777/747 capt opening creates 20 movements below

sinca3

Wear your seat belts in the hotels van folks!! I just watched one of my F/A get thrown around as we got rear-ended in a 6 car pile up heading to the hotel!! Everyone is ok other than the sore necks etc.
Cheers

NuGuy

Heyas Scoop,

Don't let the spin dissuade you.

I was walking down the B/C concourse in DTW the other day.

Virtually ALL of the cities were former mainline NW cities, that we served profitably with that bad old gas guzzling DC-9 for YEARS and YEARS.

Tiny places like AZO, TVC, MBS, State Capitols Like OMA and LAN...short hops like FNT, and international destinations like YYZ and YUL....all once profit centers for the mainline, now flown with outsourced labor.

And Detroit-Houston...ON AN RJ? Delta's second largest hub and the 4th largest O&D market in the US. On an RJ. Um, yea....since when did places like Saint Louis and Houston become "small cities"?

And there were a tiny number of places that are legitimate "commuter ops" that are better, more profitably served with Saabs or DHC-8s...but we waste money subsidizing jet service to these places.

It's a lose, lose, lose all around, and we let it happen.

Nu

Nosmo King

PFN? I'm not landing at a closed airport

chuck416

Two times, my life was nearly cut short due to on-the-job incidents. Once, on the ramp at oh-dark-thirty in Fargo (you south guys will have to look it up on an Atlas), a ramper nearly ran me over on a snow covered tarmac with a baggage tractor. Missed me by about 2". (Yes, inches). Second time was riding in a hotel van, the van driver nearly had a head-on with a guy wearing coke-bottle lensed glasses coming straight for us, going the wrong way on the Interstate exit ramp (he was trying to enter, us exit). I always wear my seatbelt in the van--if available. Be careful out there....

Chuck

slowplay

Not defensive at all. Please point to where I defended management in my question. It is a legitimate question of an assertion based on "forum wisdom." The forum(s) have a track record very similar to management's in terms of mistakes.

I'm saying that NYC-ORD already has substantial mainline service. NYC isn't JFK, it includes LGA and EWR. UAL and AMR already have hourly service. JBLU and CAL have substantial service. UAL and AMR have ORD hubs. JBLU has a JFK domestic hub larger than DAL. CAL's EWR hub is larger than DAL in LGA. It's my view that using large RJ's on that route allows DAL to "skim" already loyal business flyers from the other alliances without fare depression due to gross overcapacity in an already overserved market. It also induces some loss to the other carriers.

No question that Mullin/Reid/Burns screwed up. They are no longer here. We aren't aircraft limited, however. There are still desert aircraft that could have been brought back to service sooner. There is substantial aircraft utilization slack in some of the domestic fleet.

If you take a look at the PCL 10-Q, as part of the Mesaba deal the PCL/MAH CPA's were renegotiated. They provide for performance incentives AND penalties. The ASA/SKYW agreements already contain cost provisions that will trigger CPA resets. TSH is privately held, but I suspect the CPZ agreement was renegotiated in that light.

Didn't Mesa, a DCI carrier, file for bankruptcy?

Put it in the context of the time. BusEx was bought by AMR. Delta lost all their northeast feed into BOS and JFK. CMR was thinking of going independent. Some other airlines were looking at ASA in ATL. The purchases, while grossly overpriced, were defensive moves that protected Delta's hub operations. The sale of ASA was a fire sale to have enough cash to survive bankruptcy. We almost ran out.

The aren't. Your February 2008 profit sharing check was based on DAL's 2007 fuel hedging accumen. Again, please point to me the brokerage houses and airlines that called oil price swings from $60 to $147 to $35 in three months. I seem to recall Goldman calling for $200 bbl oil. SWA, which hit a homerun in hedging in 2008 is now underwater.

Yup, they make mistakes. Just as the forum does. Assuming that because a route was once mainline, or because it is a city pair between large cities that it can now support mainline is a forum mistake.

jmo, and I look forward to being told what a spineless, pro-management, pro-RJ, anti-mainline Delta pilot that I am...